The owner of the Rising Pune Supergiant-Sanjiv Goenka- has praised the leadership skills of present Australian captain Steve Smith, stating that the 27-year-old showed great enthusiasm in his leadership and inspired him as a leader.

“Steve inspires me as a leader.

“Steve has a huge amount of enthusiasm in his leadership style. He's very engaged, he's very involved. He's very emotional about victory and I think he's passionate about performance,” Goenka said.

In case you didn’t know...

Just a day before the Indian Premier League auctions on the 20th of February, the Pune-franchise decided to replace MS Dhoni with Smith as their captain, causing widespread surprise and even shock at certain levels.

A day later, the team bought star England all-rounder Ben Stokes for a whopping sum of Rs. 14.5 crores to emerge as the highest paid player in the auction and further strengthened what already looks like a really competent outfit.

The heart of the matter

Goenka further added that Smith was totally involved in the whole team building process and is very clear about the kind of players he needs. These and several other qualities of the Australian captain have certainly impressed Goenka and we can surely hope for him to put all of them into play when the team begin their campaign against the Mumbai Indians on the 6th April at the Gahunje Stadium.

Prior to the start of the Indian Premier League on the 5th of April, Smith will need to play a stellar role as a captain for the Australian cricket team and ensure that they win both the Test matches at Ranchi and Dharamshala and retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

The right-hander notched up a match-winning hundred on a square turner in Pune a few weeks back and will hope to put in a similar showing in the game at Ranchi as well, starting Thursday.

Sportskeeda’s take

While there will be a section of fans who would still be annoyed at the decision by the franchise to remove Dhoni as captain, Goenka and co. are already looking forward to the upcoming season, which could well be their last, depending on the decision that would be taken once the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals return to the fold again next season.

Smith’s selection as captain should hopefully also help bring the best out of him as a leader and one hopes the right-hander can help Pune go all the way this year.